


Cradles (season 5 rewrite)

by goodgaymckay



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Alcohol, Child Death, Depression, F/M, Flashbacks, Ghosts, Homoeroticism, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Lloyd’s 12 mentally, Lloyd’s more childlike than in the show, M/M, Morro’s 15, Murder, Nonbinary Character, Not Canon Compliant, Revenge, Season Rewrite, TW // cop mention, Trauma, Vomiting, drug mention, he/they Ronin, season 5
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:20:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25802026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodgaymckay/pseuds/goodgaymckay
Summary: All of season 5 just gets rewritten oops I’ll change this bit later
Relationships: Dareth/Ronin (Ninjago), Nya/Jay Walker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. Chapter 1

Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon. His latest target. The reward, his own cursed soul. 

Ronin craved having a soul again, to fully love, to fully  live.

But there he was, alone, playing video games. Ronin felt himself freezing up. The Green Ninja wasn’t  just the Green Ninja. He was a  child.

Soul archer knew this full well, Morro too, neither cared. Ronin.. Ronin did care. 

He had a daughter of his own, back in his early 20s. After a fight with her mother he never saw her again. 

He couldn’t help but see a little bit of her in Lloyd. 

But it had to be done. 

Silent as a mouse, Ronin creeped through the bedroom window and noticed the clunky headphones blasting music into Lloyd’s ears. 

Ah, he didn’t need to be this careful. 

The boy laughed along to whatever joke was said in the character dialogue, Ronin stood behind him.

He looked at his hands, then back to Lloyd. 

He hadn’t known Lloyd long, but he knew the ninja and he knew Dareth. 

Dareth had known Lloyd since he was 10, which definitely impacted his acceptance of the deal. 

Ronin’s hands were now hovering over the headphones.

He began to mentally count. 

_ Three. _

_ Two. _

**_ One. _ **

**_ CRACK- _ **

Lloyd dropped to the floor, his controller hitting his lap on the way down. 

The deed was done. 

Ronin pulled the curtain back, to leave the way he came. 

One last glance to Lloyd’s body. 

There was no longer a Green Ninja. 

———

“Lloyd?” Kai called out into the hallway, cracking his back as he walked down to Lloyd’s bedroom. 

“Lloyd dinner’s done!” He knocked on the door. “Zane made it this time.”

He pushed the door open, seeing the boy laying on the floor.

Kai shook his head, walking over to Lloyd. 

He lightly shoved the kid, opting to pick him up when that didn’t move him.

Lloyd’s head rolled around once he was picked up. 

Lloyd was dead. 

The corpse was back on the floor, Kai now on his knees. 

Screaming, screaming as loud as his vocal cords would let him. 

Lloyd, someone he considered a brother, was laying on the floor with his neck snapped. 

Kai couldn’t stop screaming. Not when the other ninja ran in, not when Zane and Nya grabbed him tight in their arms. Not when the cops arrived. 

Eventually, the screaming turned into mumbles. 

The mumbles turned into speaking. 

The speaking turned into yelling. 

Right back to screaming. 

Screaming out  “I will put you back together”  until his throat was hoarse and his eyes were red with tears. 

Only to be dragged out of the room with a shock blanket around his shoulders.

It was now the beginning of the end. 


	2. carnivore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the topic of payment arises, Dareth comes into play.  
> (Since I don’t remember/it didn’t mentioned Dareth’s occupation in season 5, I’ve given him his season 8 job. A bartender.)

Hidden in an alleyway, Ronin’s eyes met with Soul Archer’s.

the silence was deafening as he approached the ghost.

Not even a foot apart, Soul Archer began to caress Ronin’s cheek with a clawed ghostly finger.

Ronin shuddered, it was cold, _extremely_ cold.

“You know what I’m here for.” The living growled, batting the ghost’s hand away.

The Archer pulled a small pendant from inside of his many cloaks and rags. The small glass ball attached swirled with a cosmic green.

“So? How the hell do I do this?” Ronin made vague hand gestures towards the orb.

Soul Archer pointed downward, refusing to speak.

“Get on my knees?”

The Archer nodded.

Ronin lowered himself, pulling off his hat and setting it aside, hands now resting on each corresponding thigh.

Soul Archer’s fingers dug into the glass as he held the pendant over Ronin’s head, cracking it, freeing his soul.

Now he would no longer be sent to the cursed realm, forever trapped and indebted to Soul Archer.

Ronin’s soul spilled over him, each drop soaking into his body.

The process felt.. strange. He didn’t expect his soul to be warm, or sticky. He assumed it wouldn’t be a liquid at all, rather a gas, sort of like smoking a bong.

The Archer pulled down the rag that was covering his own mouth, the large monstrous teeth and slimy slithering tongue being exposed.

“That’s not all of it, is it?” Ronin stood, holding his woven hat against his chest.

“Of course not.” Soul Archer finally spoke, gripping Ronin’s chin with a rough, cold hand.

The long, slimy tongue dragged along Ronin’s warm flesh, bleeding the last of his soul into him.

Ronin shuddered, a groan following, a stroke of heat running down his spine.

And with that, The Archer was gone.

Ronin was back on his knees, breathing laboured as the saliva remaining from the transfer dribbled down his face.

“Fucking ghosts..”

—————————

Ronin slid his way into the bar, pushing past some creeps of a motorcycle gang.

He rocks up to the front of the bar, sitting by the bartender, who just so happened to be Dareth.

“Ronin!” Dareth grinned, dragging on the _i_ as he said it.

“Dareth..” The taller said back to the bartender.

“Whiskey, neat, right?” Dareth’s upbeat demeanour didn’t fall once.

Ronin simply nodded.

“Rough day at work, sparrow?” He questioned, sliding the other his drink. “I can pass my shift over to someone else if you’d wanna go back to my apartment?”

Ronin shook his head, sipping at the whiskey. “I’ve had a real bad day, did something I didn’t want to and the pay was awful.”

Dareth nodded.

The two stayed in a comforting silence as Dareth worked and Ronin drank his troubles away.

As most of the patrons dispersed and it was left to just Dareth wiping the countertop the other was leaning on, Dareth spoke up. 

"what is your job anyway?"

Ronin froze, clenching his glass. He struggled to speak.

"I can't tell you, I have an NDA, remember?" Ronin phrased the last part like a question, but they both knew full well it was true. "But.. you can guess."

Dareth lit up at the second statement, excitedly listing jobs.

"Secret agent?"

Ronin shook his head.

"Undercover cop in the mafia?"

Ronin once again shook his head.

"Assassin!"

Ronin hesitated before he heard Dareth laughing.

"You couldn't be, you're too soft.." The bartender laid a hand atop the other's.

"Yeah.. too soft.." Ronin repeated.


	3. Worst In Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grrr big scary ghost  
> —  
> Implied sexual content at the end kinda? It’s a morning after scene yk nothing sexy happens but the vibes r there.

The body was missing. 

The body was  _missing_. 

Lloyd’s body was laid to rest against an alter inside the temple ruins.

Wu would place flowers and a cup of peppermint tea by his grave everyday.

He had came back to the bounty in a panicked state.

Frenzied shouting regarding Lloyd’s body and where it could have gone.

Until he freezes.

An encounter with a ghost was rumoured to have occurred in Ninjago City as of late.

He utters one word. A name. 

_ “Morro”.  _

-

Eyes opened slowly, slightly sluggish.

Frenzied laughter pushes through his body, loud and maniacal. 

Short fingers flexed and cracked.

“Awh  _ fuck  _ it’s good to be back!” Morro yells, popping his back and relishing the human body he now inhabited.

He pushed his hands up to fluff his hair, remembering this body had less than he had.

He drops to the ground, desperate to truly  feel  something after years stuck in an incorporeal form. 

He claws the sand and dirt that mixed around the temple’s insides.

He laughed again, not as maniacal now, more surprised than anything.

The dirt got under his fingernails and felt crunchy.

His hands shook, waving off the dirt as he stood back up.

With more cracking and stretching, Morro tries his hand at something.

A large, albeit slightly corrupted, energy dragon swirls around in the sky, landing and roaring in his face.

Morro stands in front of it, unfazed.

The dragon concedes, lowering its head for the possessed to climb up.

He climbs atop it’s back, hands gently stroking the cold scales.

“There we go..” Morro coos, making the corrupted warm up to his presence fast.

The dragon beats it’s wings and lifts into the air, shocking him as he struggles to keep aboard the large lizard.

“Head for stixx. There’s someone we need to see.” 

—

“You’re too nice to me, Dareth..” Ronin’s slim hand brushed along the expanse of the ‘brown ninja’s’ chest.

”you stay with me almost every night sparrow, don’t say that.” The chunkier man squints at the sunlight beaming through the window, speaking softly to his partner.

Ronin nods, nestling his head into the crook of Dareth’s neck.

His mind races, wondering about everything in his life.

They couldn’t process anything. He didn’t know anything.

Anything about _why_ Morro wanted Lloyd dead, why he actually went through with it, how the ninja were coping.

Yet Dareth seems to bring him back to the ‘now’ just as he always does.

”Should we get up and hit Chen’s for an early breakfast?” He questions, hand coming up to his chin to scratch at the light stubble Ronin desperately wished he would keep.

The taller moves away to get up, nodding. His slim body stretching as the golden light of the sun peered through the curtains, nestling itself on his tanned skin and the pink scars dressing their entire body.

”You really are a sight, y’know?” Dareth comments, twisting to lay on his side and stare at the other.

A blush hints itself on Ronin’s face and chest, looking down at the pale man and chuckling.

”Compared to you I look awful.” Ronin shrugs, opting for one of Dareth’s large shirts and a pair of sweatpants they chose to leave in case he ever slept over to cover himself with.

Dareth shakes his head, seeming sad at the doubt the other had for themself.

”C’mon baby, let’s go get breakfast.” He sighs and finally starts to get up.

Ronin nods, coming to terms with the fact that not everything in their life was awful.

As long as Dareth was with them, he’d be okay.


End file.
